Tag: Gun Rights

I can Only Conclude Mayor Bloomberg is a Psychopath

Mayor Bloomberg’s recent statement on Piers Morgan leads me to only one conclusion, he’s a psychopath. Let’s consider Bloomberg’s statement:

“I don’t understand why the police officers across this country don’t stand up collectively and say, ‘We’re gonna go on strike. We’re not going to protect you unless you, the public, through your legislature, do what’s required to keep us safe,’” Bloomberg said.

“After all, police officers want to go home to their families and we’re doing everything we can to make their jobs more difficult,” the mayor added.

That’s an interesting statement coming from Bloomberg. The implication appears to be that police officers are being killed left and right (which they’re not) because of the current gun laws in the United States so, as a means of punishing the public for not demanding stricter gun laws, the police should go on strike until the public decides to surrender their arms. Another implication is that crime would skyrocket so high while the police were on strike that people would surrender their arms to regain police protection. There’s a major catch-22 with his statement. He believes the police are critical for the safety of individuals and guns are dangerous for individuals. Because of these beliefs he wants the police to stop protect individuals which, according to Bloomberg’s beliefs, will cause a great deal of harm to come to those individuals. He’s so invested in his goal of restricting gun ownership that he’s willing to, according to his belief in police being necessary for the safety of individuals, hurt everybody to achieve it. That right there is a classic trademark of a psychopath.

He is one of the people I fear because he’s so sure of his ideology that he’s willing, once again according to his own beliefs, to kill people for it.

Personally I’d have no problem with the police going on strike because I don’t believe they’re necessary to the safety of our society. In the absence of police I believe the market would take over and protection would be offered through voluntary means. But Bloomberg doesn’t share my belief in market anarchism so for him to suggest what he’s suggesting is despicable. It would be akin to me suggesting a North Korean-esque state be established in the Untied States to viciously beat and murder people until they’re convinced the state is evil and come over to my way of thinking.

Failing to Grasp History

One thing is certain, a large number of people fail to learn from history. A letter printed in the Star Tribune demonstrates this fact:

After 9/11, it became much tougher to fly, with new bans and restrictions on what you could bring onto any commercial airliner, all in the name of safety, protecting us from people bent on mass killing. The rules may not be perfect, but they seem to work very well.

The big problem here is that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has failed to catch a single terrorist. In fact the shoe bomber, plot involving liquid-based bombs, and the underwear bomber all have two things in common; they happened after 9/11 and the implements meant to destroy the planes managed to get on the planes.

Those of us who pay attention to security-related news have a term for the new practices implemented since 9/11, security theater. The so-called security measures are nothing more than a show meant to make you feel safer but fail to actually make you safer. They’re expensive boondoggles that waste valuable resources on unproductive failures.

When the manufacturing of methamphetamine spiraled out of control, limits and actual databases were created to block the staggering amount of head-cold products being used to make meth. Not perfect, but working pretty well, according to recent statistics.

I’m guessing the author is referring to the restrictions on pseudoephedrine. You know, those restrictions that have failed to curb meth production and have added $1.5 billion to the actual cost of medicines containing pseudoephedrine? In fact this point ties in with the author’s previous point because the TSA have been caught assisting drug dealers in smuggling methamphetamine.

The author is correct about one thing, the laws aren’t perfect, in fact they abysmal failures that waste valuable resources that could be productively used elsewhere.

When drunken driving became an epidemic in this country, we cracked down and made the penalties much harsher. Not perfect by any means, but much better than it was.

I’m sure the author isn’t referring to civil rights violations like sobriety checkpoints that usually failed to catch any drunk drivers. Perhaps he was referring to Prohibition, which lead to a massive spike in the rate of violent crime. Interesting, according to that study, not only did Prohibition lead to a spike in violent crime but so did the war on drugs. Once again the author is correct, the means are not perfect, in fact they are likely worse than the problem they were supposed to fix.

When psychotic people, intent on killing as many people as possible, can buy unlimited ammunition, riot gear, assault weapons and bomb material with a simple driver’s license, a 30-minute background check (as in Colorado) and free shipping through the Internet, I have to question anyone who doesn’t support fair, equitable, common-sense decisions limiting how and what can be purchased.

And those of us who pay attention to history must question you for suggesting we implement policies that have been shown to fail. In fact the government itself admitted that the deceptively named assault weapon ban “has failed to reduce the average number of victims per gun murder incident or multiple gunshot wound victims.” On top of that, so-called assault weapons are rarely used in crimes [PDF]:

Proponents of renewing the ban claim that assault weapons are currently used in two-thirds fewer crimes than before the AWB,76 but other empirical evidence suggests that “assault weapons. . . are rarely used in crimes.”77 Fewer than ten percent of all murders and manslaughters involved long guns (of which semiautomatic rifles are a small subset).78 Contrary to the common perception, assault weapons are used in only about one percent of all police gun murders.79 The Justice Department study mandated by the AWB80 was also equivocal: noting that assault weapons are not commonly used in crimes and that Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) tracing statistics were down since the AWB, but that there were generally more weapons available to the public which could possibly reach criminal hands.81

Do note that the research paper wasn’t written by a pro-gun organization but by an individual that was hoping to find publicly acceptable forms of gun control. When those in favor of gun control fail to make an argument for banning so-called assault weapons then the cause can’t be considered anything but pointless.

Limiting purchases and monitoring through a database may never be perfect, but it certainly could reduce the carnage we witness over and over in this country.

JEFF HEIMER, Blaine

Except we already tried a ban on so-called assault weapons and, as I’ve shown, it didn’t reduce violent crime. Trying something that failed again, only harder, isn’t going to make it work. We have to face the fact that crazy violent people will do crazy violent things. No amount of legislation, restrictions, or other controls can change that. The only thing we can do is allow individuals to equip themselves to best deal with such situations when they arise.

The Rhetoric Currently Being Used by Gun Control Advocates

I’ve been searching around to see what the gun control advocates are currently saying and I came across some rather questionable content on Joan Peterson’s blog (she’s a Minnesotan who keeps trying to squash gun rights). What I found most interesting was the picture she included in her article to show the equipment used by the Aurora, Colorado shooter:

I recognized that guy from somewhere and after some digging I found him:

It would seem that the shooter in Colorado had access to military equipment that the military itself doesn’t have access to yet. In fact I believe I found the source image and where it was obtained from:

I wonder why they photoshopped his gun out of the picture. Oh, yeah, because that gun is a nonexistent prototype just like the armor but is far more obvious. It would behoove the gun control advocates to do a little research before Googling “scary looking guy in body armor” and using the first picture that appears (in all fairness I had to Google “future warrior 2020” to get the picture because “scary looking guy in body armor” turned up nothing close).

So we have proof that the gun control crowd are circulating pictures of, at best, prototype equipment and passing it off as the equipment used by the shooter in Colorado. The remainder of Joan’s article is nonsensical, mostly accusing the National Rifle Association (NRA) of, well, all of the world’s problems. I’m not sure how the NRA comes into this because they certainly do not advocate the use of firearms to commit massacres. In fact they advocate firearm safety and even host firearm safety training seminars. She also fails to provide citations for any of the numbers she uses. Considering the picture she used to demonstrate the equipment used by the shooter I’m not surprised she failed to provide citations for any of the numbers she use. When you’re stretching the truth or simply making things up it’s difficult to find citations.

The Right to Own Guns

After the recent shooting in Aurora, Colorado the gun control advocates are, as many of us on the gun rights community like to say, dancing in the blood. I don’t have much to say about the incident itself, it was a tragedy that likely couldn’t be avoided. With that said I believe it is a good time to explain why individuals have the right to own firearms since many people on the gun rights fence are currently asking themselves that very question.

When asked why individuals should have the right to own firearms many members of the gun rights community will point to the Second Amendment which states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Advocates of gun control like to point to the part that talks about “A well regulated militia” while gun rights advocates like to point to the part that says “Shall not be infringed.” If you look at the history of this country it’s clear that the founders, by and large, believed individuals should be armed. One flaw in pointing to the Second Amendment is that, while it addresses the legal aspect of gun ownership, it doesn’t address the reason it can be called a right (unless you believe rights are granted by the state).

How can proponents of gun rights claim gun ownership is a right? To answer that we must first answer another question, who owns you? Any of my friends on the left (namely anarcho-communists) will say that you can’t own yourself because you are yourself. If that’s what you believe then this post isn’t for you and you can stop reading now (you can also continue but doing so may not be good for your blood pressure). On the other hand if you believe ownership is merely an extension of self you can safely continue reading without concerns for your blood pressure. Ownership, under libertarian philosophy, generally means having exclusive control over something. Most rights of ownership can be transfered from one individual to another but the right of self ownership cannot for pragmatic reasons. An individual is unable to surrender exclusive control of themselves. Even in a state of slavery, where one person is said to be owned by another, the “owned” individual has the ability to disobey his master. He can refuse to work, attempt to escape, or even attempt to kill his master.

Due to the nontransferable nature of self-ownership one is also the owner of his or her own labor. Labor can be used to produce goods or exchange for other goods. Being a producer means you take resources and alter them in such a way that other people find them useful. Since your labor created the goods they are owned by you and since you can surrender exclusive control over them they are transferable. This is the basis of economics, individuals trading goods for other goods. Usually individuals trade their goods in exchange for money.

A job is nothing more than an agreement where a laborer trades his or her labor to an employer in exchange for other goods (generally money). When you work for $10.00 an hour you’re really trading an hour of your labor to your employer in exchange for $10.00. We must now briefly address what money is.

Money is a medium to facilitate trade. Without money we are left with a barter economy. Barter economies are incredibly inefficient because they rely on double coincidences. Let’s say we have Murray, Ludwig, and Hans. Murray produces eggs, Ludwig produces shoes, and Hans breeds horses. What does Murray do if he wants a pair of shoes? In a barter economy he needs to trade his eggs for shoes. If Ludwig wants eggs this isn’t a problem, but if he doesn’t want eggs this is a problem. What if Ludwig wants a horse? Murray may be able to trade his eggs for a horse and then trade his horse for shoes. This only works if Hans wants eggs though. Money is nothing more than the most salable good. It’s a mechanism to eliminate the problem of double coincidences that make barter economies inefficient. Once money has been adopted Murray can trade his eggs to anybody wanting eggs in exchange for money and trade some of that money to Ludwig for shoes. When we trade our labor for money we’re really trading our labor for the most salable good so we can buy other goods. If you trade your labor for money then the money becomes an indirect product of your labor and thus you have exclusive ownership over it.

Some of your a probably wondering what this has to do with the right to own firearms. Under libertarian philosophy it has everything to do with the right to own firearms. If you are the exclusive owner of your labor and trade it in exchange for money then you are the exclusive owner of that money. As the exclusive owner of that money you can exchange it for other goods, say a firearm. If somebody uses their labor to produce a firearm then they are the exclusive owner of that firearm. Being the exclusive owner of that firearm they may trade it to another. Since you’re the exclusive owner of some money you can exchange that money to gain exclusive ownership of a firearm.

What do gun control advocates want? They want to prevent individuals from using their labor to produce or exchange for firearms. How can one do this? There are only two ways, by having ownership over another or coercion.

If you are the owner of an individual you have exclusive control. In such a case you also own the product of that individual’s labor and therefore can exchange that labor for whatever you desire. If you want to prevent that individual from obtaining a firearm you can simply refuse to allow that individual to exchange your labor (it’s not his labor since you own him) for a firearm. In effect you can only prevent another from using their labor to produce or exchange for a firearm if you have ownership over that individual. Of course, as explained earlier, such a claim is absurd because one cannot surrender exclusive control over themselves to another. That leaves the second option, coercion.

Coercion is nothing more than using the threat of or actual force to persuade or dissuade another. This is the means gun control advocates generally use. When a gun control advocate demands the state pass legislation to control firearms they are really demanding the state use the threat of or actual violence to prevent individuals from producing or obtaining firearms. The incorrectly named assault weapon ban was one of these threats. While this law was in place individuals purchasing or manufacturing new firearms that met the state’s criteria for assault weapons would be kidnapped and held in a cage. If that individual refused to comply with his kidnappers (the police) they would use physical force, even going so far as the murder that individual if he should resist sufficiently. Many gun control advocates claim they support gun control because they oppose violence but this is patently false because coercion is violence and that is the tool gun control advocates most often employ.

Gun control is an absurd idea because it either requires the ability to own another human being or coercion. Under libertarian philosophy one cannot own another for pragmatic reasons. Under United States law one cannot legally own another because the Thirteenth Amendment prohibits slavery. This means gun control can only be implemented through coercion, which makes advocates of gun control who claim to oppose violence hypocrites and their philosophy paradoxical.

Why I Ignore “No Guns Allowed” Signs at Movie Theaters

Many of the movie theaters in the Twin Cities area are posted. Thankfully those signs have very little legal weight in Minnesota, they basically tell patrons if their gun is spotted they’ll be asked to leave and if they refuse to leave the police will be called and the gun carrier will be cited for trespassing, because I ignore them. Why? Because of horrible situations like this:

A lone gunman dressed in riot gear burst into a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., at a midnight showing of the Batman film “The Dark Knight Rises” and methodically began shooting patrons, killing at least 12 people and injuring at least 50.

The suspect, James Holmes, 24, of Aurora, was caught by police in the parking lot of the Century 16 Movie Theaters, nine miles outside Denver, after police began receiving dozens of 911 calls at 12:39 a.m. MT. Police said the man appeared to have acted alone.

Witnesses in the movie theater said Holmes crashed into the auditorium through an emergency exit about 30 minutes into the film, set off a smoke bomb, and began shooting. Holmes stalked the aisles of the theater, shooting people at random, as panicked movie-watchers in the packed auditorium tried to escape, witnesses said.

[…]

Holmes was wearing a bullet-proof vest and riot helmet and carrying a gas mask, rifle, and handgun, when he was apprehended, according to police. Holmes mentioned having explosives stored, leading police to evacuate his entire North Aurora apartment complex and search the buildings early this morning.

A body armor clad individual tossed a smoke bomb (which is later referred to as tear gas) into a crowded theater and walked the isles picking off panicing people. It was basically the worst scenario one could think up whether you carry a gun or not. Getting a clean shot off at the bad guy in a smoke filled theater with panicing people isn’t an ideal situation. On top of that the guy was wearing body armor and most of us carry handguns which aren’t known for their stellar ability to penetrate body armor. Of course there is always the possibility that the shooter would do the common act of suicide upon meeting armed resistance but I wouldn’t want to bet on it. Still, I’d rather be armed in a situation like that than unarmed. The scenario that played out at that theater sucked but it would suck a whole lot more if one was unarmed.

Either way I’m sure we’ll see gun control advocates dancing in the blood soon enough. Nothing gives a gun control advocate a hardon like dead people. They’ll probably be pounding the war drums trying to get gun control, body armor control, and tear gas control legislation out of this tragedy. Fortunately people don’t seem to listen to the gun control crowd anymore so they’ll huff and puff but likely accomplish nothing.

Let me conclude by saying my heart goes out to the patrons of that theater and their families. We live in a messed up world where boogeymen do exist. They’re, thankfully, rare but almost always come out of nowhere when you least expect it.

Sometimes Doing the Right Thing Doesn’t Involve Punishment Afterward

It isn’t always the case that no good deed goes unpunished, sometimes people get away with doing the right thing:

The 71-year-old Florida man who fired his gun at two men trying to rob a crowded Internet café will not face criminal charges, an assistant state attorney general told FoxNews.com

Bill Gladson, the attorney, said he reviewed the security video from the Palms Internet café in central Florida.

The video shows patron Samuel Williams pulling a handgun and shooting. He continues firing while the suspects fall over each other as they run out the door.

Gladson said in the memo Williams’ use of force was lawful under Florida’s statutes regarding individuals rights to use deadly force when resisting a forcible felony, like a robbery.

Although a rare sight, it’s nice to see the justice system actually deliver justice. There is no reason that a man should face punishment for firing on armed aggressors. Some people have pointed out that one of the suspects claimed his firearm was nonfunctional:

‘The gun was broken and rusty and wasn’t loaded. Nobody was going to get hurt,’ he told the paper; the plan was to ‘barge in, get the money and leave.’

He said that neither of the two teens ever ‘expected anyone to be armed.’

Just as the teens didn’t expect anybody to be armed the man who fired on them didn’t expect their guns to be nonfunctional. When you initiate force you can’t expect to blame anybody who defends themselves because you didn’t really mean it. It should surprise nobody that a negative correlation exists between the number of lawful armed individuals and violent crime. The teens in this story admitted that they didn’t expect anybody to be armed, they thought the risk of robbing the Internet cafe was very low compared to the potential reward. Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for everybody else, the teens’ risk assessment was wrong and they met armed resistance.

As the number of armed individuals increases the risk of aggressing also increases. Since every action is a risk/reward assessment increasing the number of armed individuals can effectively lower violent crime, since the risk of being hurt or killed while perpetuating a violent crime becomes too high.

It’s Probably Not a Coincidence

It seems the Venezuelan government has been abusing its power more and more:

The abuse of power by the Venezuelan government under President Hugo Chavez has increased over the past four years, according to Human Rights Watch.

Legislation limiting free speech and the removal of institutional safeguards give the government free rein to censor and intimidate critics, the group says.

[…]

Its latest report, entitled Tightening the Grip: Concentration and Abuse of Power in Chavez’s Venezuela, argues that the human rights situation in the country has become even more precarious.

I doubt it’s a coincidence that the Venezuelan government has been increasingly infringing on free speech and ignoring supposed institutional safeguards during the same span of time that it’s been restricting gun ownership. In “>2006 the Venezuelan government implemented stricter gun control laws and went even further this year when it banned legal gun ownership for non-military and non-police personell. History has demonstrated that states start implementing arms control as they are ramping up the tyranny machinery.

Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership has an excellent list of states that implemented gun control schemes shortly before beginning acts of genocide. The Soviet Union, for example, didn’t abolish private gun ownership until 1929, immediately before Stalin’s purges began. Nazi Germany also implemented gun control laws that prevented Jews and other state-proclaimed enemies from owning firearms. Needless to say it’s not surprising to see Venezuela following the same road. Now that Chavez’s empire has declared a state monopoly on gun ownership things are bound to only get worse. Again, if you live in Venezuela it would be a good time to get out.

Will Fast and Furious Whistleblowers be Prosecuted

Operation Fast and Furious hasn’t gone the way the current administration was hoping. Eric Holder was found in contempt of Congress when he refused to release documents related to the inquiry. Since that point the administration has been in damage control mode. Obama granted Holder executive privilege to keep the documents hidden and the Department of Justice (DoJ) said they weren’t going to prosecute Holder since he’s a member of the DoJ. Now it appears that the DoJ is looking for victims for it’s wrath:

The Justice Department’s inspector general is probing whether two federal agents could face retaliation for blowing the whistle on operation “Fast and Furious.”

In a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), made public on Monday, IG Michael Horowitz said he was investigating their concerns that two federal officials could be at risk of retaliatory action for speaking out against the botched gun-tracking operation.

John Dodson and Pete Forcelli, special agents in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), testified before Congress last year about the shortcomings of Operation Fast and Furious as details of the failed program were becoming public.

Considering what’s happened in the case so far I’m betting the DoJ will find that the Fast and Furious whistleblowers can be prosecuted and will shortly afterward prosecute them. If there is one guarantee in this world it’s that a government agency, like a wild animal, with lash out at anybody and everybody when wounded. This is because, being an entity that survives entirely on violence, they must show that they are capable of causing great amounts of harm to anybody who dissents. I will actually be surprised if the DoJ says the Fast and Furious whistleblowers can’t be prosecuted.

One in 40 Minnesota Adults Has a Permit to Carry

On Sunday the Star Tribune, which generally leans collectivist, ran an article on permit holders in Minnesota. While I was expecting anti-gun propaganda I have to admit that the article is actually balanced, another sign that we’re winning. I found the following statistic interesting:

Handgun owners have more freedom now than they’ve had in nearly a century, with every state except Illinois offering average residents the option of getting a carry permit, up from just a few states in the 1970s. In Utah, where gun laws are so liberal public schools can’t even prohibit them, one in nearly seven adults has a permit. In New Jersey, where local authorities have retained the discretion to deny permits, just one in 4,200 adults has one.

This spring, in the wake of the killing of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin in Florida and a vigorous national debate over “Stand Your Ground” laws, Minnesota surpassed 100,000 permits, putting it in the numeric middle of the states, with one in 40 adults now licensed to carry.

What does the Martin case have to do with Minnesota permit holders? Nothing. Why was it brought up? Because the Star Tribune has to put in some kind of slight against permit holders, as I said they lean heavily collectivist. Either way it’s interesting to note that when the state was may-issue there were only 4,200 permit holders and now that the state is shall-issue there are over 100,000 permit holders. This massive increase in the number of permit holders hasn’t lead to an increase in violent crime (the law changed in 2003). It’s also nice to see Wisconsin residents moved in quickly to obtain carry permits after it’s state legally lawful carrying of firearms late last year:

Minnesotans queued up at an average rate of 10,000 a year, swelling the ranks of permit holders from 11,381 in 2002 to 50,777 by 2007. Wisconsin, which in November became one of the last states to pass a carry permit law, reached 100,000 permits in less than six months.

I was pleased that the article author put in a piece that acknowledges the fact that Minnesota allows permit holders to carry openly or concealed:

Rothman says he is among the relatively few state residents who exercise the right under the law to carry openly, his pistol strapped to his left hip.

“Education is the reason,” he said. “Many people don’t know that carrying a gun can be perfectly legal, and [they] emotionally equate guns with illegal violence. When they see a neatly groomed suburban dad innocently shopping with this undeniably adorable young kids, it challenges that preconception.”

I know there is a heated debate between gun rights advocates regarding open carry. Some claim that openly carrying a gun for political reasons is absolutely idiotic but I agree with Rothman’s statement, open carry works as a mechanism of raising awareness. When individuals see an otherwise normal looking individual carrying a gun they are often inclined to ask about it and are then surprised to learn that it is legal for people outside of law enforcement to carry firearms. That individual may then decide to get a carry permit and our numbers increase. My form of carry is based on comfort. Generally I conceal my firearm because it avoids potential headaches I don’t want to deal with but when concealment becomes uncomfortable (when biking for example) I openly carry. Thankfully we hav both options available to us in Minnesota.

The article also managed to get a quote from one of the local anti-gunners that greatly demonstrates the flaw in their rhetoric:

The law “has not been a net benefit to our society in any way,” said Heather Martens, executive director of Protect Minnesota — Working to End Gun Violence. “They promised that if lots of people had guns everybody would be safe. Here just [recently] we had a 5-year-old child killed while sleeping on a couch. I think we were sold a bill of goods.”

I don’t know of a single gun rights advocate that said “if lots of people had guns everybody would be safe.” What those of us who advocate gun rights have said is that having more individuals carrying firearms will not lead to an increase in violent crime and it gives individuals an option if they’re attacked by a violent individuals. The anti-gunner then brings up a case completely unrelated to the story at hand, but it involved a child so the emotional value is very high and anti-gunners prey on emotions. Was the person who shot the 5 year-old a permit holder? Not that I’ve heard. How did the case of the 5 year-old being shot related to a story about permit holders? It didn’t. The flat in the gun control zealots’ cause is that it’s based entirely on emotional appeal instead of factual data. Since they can’t win with facts they try to create an image in the minds of the public that gun owners hate children.

Your Lack of Logic is Disturbing

The Illinois gun rights organization Guns Save Life decided to use the Chicago Police Department’s gun buyback program against them but donating junk guns and raising money for a youth camp that teaches children how to safely use firearms. Needless to say the gun control zealots were not amused and as always they have resorted to emotional pleas to demonize gun rights activists. As is standard for gun control zealots the argument being made by the author was nonsensical:

The group, Guns Save Life, based in Champaign County, said they’d use the gift cards to buy ammunition and firearms for a youth program that teaches gun safety and marksmanship.

Clever, huh?

While in town, though, we have to wonder if the pro-gun group happened to read about Heaven, the 7-year-old girl who was killed last Wednesday by goofs with guns who shot into a crowd outside her mother’s house. And we have to wonder if they happened to catch the news about the eight other people killed over the weekend, including a 3-year-old boy, and the 17 who were wounded — all shot by people with guns.

What’s interesting about this is how the Chicago Police perform their gun buyback program. When you bring a gun in the Chicago Police Department gives you a gift card and no questions are asked or records kept. After the event concludes the collected guns are destroyed, not submitted to forensics to determine if any of the firearms were used in a crime. The gun buyback is one of the most effective means of evidence destruction available to a criminal in Chicago. Because of the gun buyback program the perpetrators of the shootings mentioned in the article could have easily handed in the murder tool and got the Chicago Police Department to destroy the evidence.

Gun buyback programs, like every program conjured up by gun control zealots, are poorly thought out and thus come with numerous unintended consequences attached. The author then makes another interesting statement:

To mock those efforts, even as one might disagree with them, is offensive. Our children lie dead in the morgue.

What is more offensive, exploiting a poorly implement program in order to teach children how to safely use firearms or having the police destroy evidence in murder cases? To me the latter is extremely offensive because it prevents the perpetrators of the crimes mentioned by the author from being prosecuted.

A tip of the hat goes to Days of our Trailers for this demonstration of gun control zealot idiocy.